Mobil, or cell telephones, in Kiev Ukraine have changed dramatically in the last few years. Mobile telephones are a must have here because of their great convenience, low cost and the unavailability of land lines!

Mobile phones are also quite the status symbol and most people have very expensive phones. Also, and interesting statistic is that there are more mobile telephones in the Ukraine than there are people.

The two main mobile telephone company here are UMC and Kyivstar. These two telephone companies both work the same way and cost about the same. You purchase a chip and insert it in your telephone or you can buy a new telephone from them. UMC site is  www.umc.ua and Kyivstar at www.kyivstar.net

In October 2003 all mobile telephone incoming calls became free. This is very important because your Ukrainian friends probably can not afford to make a call but will be very happy to receive a call from you.

This is also a great reason to get a cell phone when you are in Kiev. You can e-mail your mobile telephone number to your friend back home and when they call you there is no charge to you!

Outgoing tariffs are around $0.50 per minute but can be as little as $0.20 if you call the same phone company as you use.

I use the Life brand and if you have this company you can call our office for no charge to you and us! Also with life if you enter the code 811 before dialing internationally the charge for North America is $0.50 and $0.60 for Europe.

If you would like we can rent you a cell phone including a chip (number) for $45.00.

If you are here and would like to to call back home I highly suggest using an telephone calling card. It is really pretty simple. Just purchase the card at any of the street vendors. They are located all over the city and there are many at the central square Independence square.

Just like at home you call a number listed on the back of the card, enter your card number and dial away. The international code for the US and Canada is 1. Telephones here are pulse and not tone so you will need to press the # key before entering the card code.

Below is typical of what you will see in Kiev every 100 yards. This man is selling mobile phone chips, mobile phone credit, long distance calling cards and dial up Internet account cards.

Busy time at a pay phone in the center of Kiev!

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